Our picksSurveillance: a political solution; securing 5G; the state of cybersecurity, and more

Surveillance is a tech problem, but it requires a policy solution (Elias Groll, Foreign Policy)
Apple’s former security chief explains why he took a job with the ACLU.

Do USF police radios work on campus? Lawsuit raises questions, campus shootings raise the stakes (Tony Marrero, Tampa Bay Times)
University officials declined to comment on the lawsuit, but USF Police Chief Chris Daniel said the department’s Harris XG-75P radios work well and do not compromise safety.

Former MS-13 member who secretly helped police is deported (Hannah Dreier, New York Magazine)
Henry was twice forced to join the brutal gang MS-13, first in El Salvador and then on Long Island. Twice, he tried to escape its violence. He became an informant, helping law enforcement arrest other MS-13 members.
But his FBI gang task force handler broke a promise to help him, and immigration authorities revealed his identity, as we reported last year. This month, Henry was deported to El Salvador, despite warnings that MS-13 members there would hunt him down and kill him. He’s now gone into hiding.

If 5G is so important, why isn’t it secure? (Tom Wheeler, New York Times)
The network must be secure enough for the innovations it promises.

The state of cybersecurity today (Security Boulevard)
Back in 2004, when I co-wrote this USA TODAY cover story about spam-spreading botnets, I recall advising my editor to expect cybersecurity to be a headline-grabbing topic for a year or two more, tops.
I was wrong. Each year over the past decade-and-a-half, a cause-and-effect pattern has spread more pervasively into the fabric of modern society. Each and every major advance of Internet-centric commerce – from e-tailing and email, to social media and mobile computing, and now on to the Internet of Things – has translated into an exponential expansion of the attack surface available to cybercriminals.

Education industry not making the grade for cybersecurity (Matthew McKenna, ITProPortal)
Hackers are becoming increasingly more skilled at stealing school and student data, however the education industry is no better prepared to deal with these malicious threats.

Government can’t force people to unlock phones using facial recognition, fingerprints: Federal judge (Ethan Baron, Mercury News)
A federal judge in Oakland ruled that law enforcement agencies cannot force people to use biometric features such as facial-recognition to unlock their phones and other devices in a case that highlights the fight between Big Tech and law enforcement over users’ privacy.
The decision arose out of an extortion case in which two suspects allegedly used Facebook Messenger to threaten that if a man didn’t give them money, they would distribute embarrassing video of him.

Scientists warn of climate ‘time bomb’ for world’s groundwater (Patrick Galey, AFP)
Future generations face an environmental “time bomb” as the world’s groundwater systems take decades to respond to the present day impact of climate change, scientists warned on Monday.
Found underground in cracks in soil, sand and rock, groundwater is the largest useable source of freshwater on the planet and more than two billion people rely on it to drink or irrigate crops.
It is slowly replenished through rainfall—a process known as recharge—and discharges into lakes, rivers or oceans to maintain an overall balance between water in and water out.
Groundwater reserves are already under pressure as the global population explodes and crop production rises in lockstep.
But the extreme weather events such as drought and record rainfall—both made worse by our heating planet—could have another long-lasting impact on how quickly reserves replenish, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change.

Shutdown delays training for storm spotters, “the nation’s first line of defense against severe weather” (Jesus Jimenez, The Dallas Morning News)
More than 40 classes are scheduled across North and Central Texas this year, but as the government shutdown continues, more classes could be canceled or postponed, according to the weather service.

Senators worry that new D.C. Metro railcars could carry cyber risk (Sean Lyngaas, Cyberscoop)
Senators who represent the Washington, D.C., area have raised concerns about added cybersecurity risks in the region’s Metro system after reports that a Chinese state-owned manufacturing company could win a $1 billion procurement for railcars.
The four Democrats – Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland – wrote to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority expressing their “serious concerns” of possible foreign bidding on the project, “particularly when it could involve foreign governments that have explicitly sought to undermine our country’s economic competitiveness and national security.”